| Good morning everyone, Our theme for this month: “Personal Responsibility” Our Bible verse for today: “For my part, brothers and sisters, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, since you were not yet ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready, because you are still worldly.” 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 (CSB) Our thought for today: “Don’t be a baby” In 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 the Apostle Paul was expressing his frustration with a group of Christians who had not applied themselves in any serious way to the practice of the faith. They were casual and lazy in their practice of it, and therefore they were weak in their faith. As a result, Paul found that he needed to treat them as babies in Christ, and that is what he called them. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews was dealing with a similar situation with the people he was writing to. In Hebrews 5:12 he wrote, “Although at this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God’s revelation again. You need milk, not solid food.” Many professing Christians in our day are exactly like the Christians being addressed in the passages above, they are babies in the faith because they’ve never applied themselves in any serious way to growing in the faith. That being the case, they can’t handle solid spiritual food, they simply aren’t ready for it. Instead, they need to be fed on children’s Bible stories. Trying to get them to accept and internalize serious Biblical truths is like trying to get an infant on formula to swallow steak. They just can’t handle it. If an infant doesn’t quickly progress from formula to solid food, that child will be seriously stunted in his or her growth. The same is true for Christians. That’s the point those two Biblical writers were making. Babies aren’t supposed to remain as babies. In the Bible God has made it clear that He has given us the personal responsibility to do the things necessary to help facilitate our own spiritual growth. Daily prayer, Bible reading/study, service in ministry, faithful attendance at group worship services, fellowship with other Christians, are just some of the ways spiritual growth happens. But we have to be intentional about doing those things. We need to plan for it. We must develop habits of daily prayer and Bible study; we have to actually volunteer to participate in ministry activities; faithfully attending the regularly scheduled gatherings of our church needs to be a high priority in our lives. We have to stop making excuses and just do it. Don’t be casual about the practice of your faith. Don’t just sorta/kinda do it sometimes. Be serious about your spiritual growth. If you aren’t serious about it, you’ll never grow up in Christ. Instead, like those in 1 Corinthians and Hebrews that we read about, you’ll always be a baby in the faith. Don’t be a baby. God bless, Pastor Jim |
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Oak Hill Baptist Church 
Amen. Good word. I love it. Read this to my husband. Very nice.
Thank you!